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Ferrite

Markdown editor in Rust with native Mermaid diagram rendering

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Ferrite: Fast Markdown/Text/Code editor in Rust with native Mermaid diagramsBuilt a Markdown editor using Rust + egui. v0.2.1 just dropped with major Mermaid improvements:→ Native Mermaid diagrams - Flowcharts, sequence, state, ER, git graphs - pure Rust, no JS→ Split view - Raw + rendered side-by-side with sync scrolling→ Syntax highlighting - 40+ languages with large file optimization→ JSON/YAML/TOML tree viewer - Structured editing with expand/collapse→ Git integration - File tree shows modified/staged/untracked statusAlso: minimap, zen mode, auto-save, session restore, code folding indicators.~15MB binary, instant startup. Windows/Linux/macOS.GitHub: https://github.com/OlaProeis/Ferritev0.2.2 coming soon with performance improvements for large files. Looking for feedback!

HN · launched Jan 11, 2026 · 241 upvotes (top 3%) · 0 views

Niche: markdown editors and viewers · 158 launches, 13 in the last 7 days ▲ +86% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags
  • Horizontal
  • Dev tools
  • Prosumer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

More like this: all 158 launches in markdown editors and viewers →

Could you build this?

No Writing a native Mermaid parser and layout/rendering engine from scratch in pure Rust without JavaScript or webviews requires complex compiler and graph-layout algorithm expertise.

What it would actually take: Building this requires implementing a full parsing pipeline for the various Mermaid grammar sub-languages (flowcharts, sequence diagrams, ER diagrams) combined with graph layout algorithms (such as Sugiyama-style hierarchical layout or force-directed placement). The stack would be Rust with egui and custom 2D vector geometry rendering pipelines. Specialized knowledge of formal grammars, graph layout mathematics, and low-level GUI rendering is essential.

Discussion

20 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: draw.io/Excalidraw, Diagrams-as-code Python library, D2, Mermaid.js

Concerns raised: AI-generated code lacks transparency and learning context vs human-written code, Mermaid lacks AWS architecture diagram icons and patterns, Mermaid's declarative layout is hard to manually control for visual thinking

Feature requests: Manual node positioning/drag-and-drop while keeping diagram-as-code for version control, AWS icons and architecture diagram support, Layout hints/constraints syntax to influence diagram positioning, Custom icon/shape support for different architecture types, Highlight no-login demo requirement more prominently in README

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 485 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #25 of 486 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 71 days after the earliest competitor.

  • Mermaid Design · ph · 2026-10-03 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.65
  • Line9 · hn · 2026-08-06 · 87 upvotes · similarity 0.64
  • Visimer · hn · 2026-08-17 · 17 upvotes · similarity 0.64
  • splat · github · 2026-10-29 · 45 upvotes · similarity 0.62
  • Mmdr · hn · 2026-02-04 · 47 upvotes · similarity 0.61
  • Markdown Prism · hn · 2026-02-14 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.56
  • Openly · ph · 2026-10-06 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.56
  • Markdown Viewer · ph · 2026-10-18 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.54

Related data

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